Hide Article Text (OCR)
A SAW OF THElt;-A Converted Synagogue —The Story of St. Simon—Researches into the t*e-gend—An Energetic Bishop—Iriden-tine Characteristics.{.Correspondence of The Evening Poetl.-Trxnt, Jtmer30.^Xtrwalkmg; through one’s attention cannot but be arrested by a house with to.circular reliefs and accompanying inscrlptiorHaving nothing better to do I looked and read, and found to my surprise that in this house, fc merly a synagogue, was now the Chapel of St Simon, who was martyred by evil-minded Jei for the purpose of their Passover in 147o. O relief represented the boy being strangled while his blood was drawn; the other showed his apotheosis. This was the first time in my experien that this legend of the Jews using the blood oi Christian child for their paschal rites had en assumed so concrete a form, and my curiosity was greatly excited. Prima facie the story vi of course, absurd; but there must have bee wicked Jews as well as wicked Christians; an at a time when the Jews were generally persecu1 •ed it would not be surprising if some of the mor superstitious or fanatical occasionally retaliafeec I have read the records of a Russian case of this kind where the crime seemed to me satisfactorily proved, although at the same time it is necessary to admit that it was in Russia, with a procedure very different from ours. Going back to an ecclesiastical book-shop, I inquired for an accoc of the martyrdom of St. Simon of Trent, andexplanation told of the house that I had Just selt;A priest who was present, while he gave somereferences to authorities, said: 44 ’Tis to our great shsme that this is still believed.” (I may savparenthesis that I found here, for the modei ate sum of five francs, a book the like of which I h teen long wanting, and had searched for in vain in several large American libraries: 4 Martiro gio Romano da to in luce per ordine di Gregorio X1G, . . . aumentato e corretto da Benedet-, to XIV. Kuova edizione i tali ana. Torino, 18$4tpf pp. 245. It contains a complete list of 1saints to the present time.)Next, it was, necessary to go to the Cathedral, a beautiful Romanesque building, and see thetomb of the militant Prince-Bishop, John Hinder bach, where, among other praises, the epitaph reads—4 4 Et Divi templum condldit ipse Petri,In quo, damnatis Judeis, Simonis ossa’ Ban eta locat,”not to speak of two pictures in which the babykaint appears. Then to the Church of St. Peter, where the blackened mummy of Saint Simon lies in a glass case on the altar of-his chapel, while on the walls are Latin verses and pictures descriptive of the martyrdom, with a fine relief over the door. The Chapel was restored as lateas 1885, but seemed generally deserted. Afterall, if the story be true, St. Simon has more right.to his Chapel than many others in like case—theHoly Innocents, for example, who are commemo-rated even by the English Church; for, althoughunconsciously, he met his death on account of thereligion in which he was born. With considerable curiosity as to the origin of the legend, I spentthe afternoon in the City Library, where theamiable librarian, Signor Francesco Ambrosi,the author of several interesting and useful bookson the history of Trent, soon brought out a number of books, hXpltiding the Memoranda on the subject of Bishop Hinderbach in the 4 Monumen-ta Ecclesi® TriSentinae ’ (vol. iii, pt. 2, pp. 429-465. Tridenfci, 1765), and a manuscript volume containing the original record of the investigation of De Sales, Bishop of Brixen. The casej-oon became plain..For many years before the event in question, tie J^ws were settled in parts of. the Trentino,were prosperous, lived on good terms with theirneighbors, and bad synageguesr-in Trent, as itseems, on one of the chief streets. In the springof 1475, late in Lent, a monk, named Bernardino Tomitano, afterwards beatified, came to preach air Trent, and,'finding there no traces of thenorthern German heresies, took to heart the toleration accorded to the Jews, and told the men o! Trent that 44 if they did not soon expel them,they would be forced to do so by their most in*famous actions when they had with their owneyes seen these wretches feed on. the flesh of theirinnocent children and satiate their thirst with Catholic blood ” (Blengini, 4 Vita del Beato Bernardino Tomitano,’ Padova, 1710, p. 109). On Ijcod Friday, March 24, Andrea Cerdo informedthe authorities that his son Simon, an infant oftwo years old, had disappeared and could not befound. Search was made; the body of the childwas found in a $ewer, near the house of a Jew, and physicians testified that it had been bled to death. The whole town quickly became excited at this speedy fulfilment of Bernardino’s prophecies. Many Jews were arrested, and, after the application of torture, most of them confessedthe murder, saying that they had twisted a scarfround the boy’s throat so that he could notscream, had held his hands and feet, and thendranfed him of his blood, which they had used inthe preparation'of the unleavened bread for thePassover.‘Those Jews whose confession was thus extortedwere put to death in most cruel ways. Somewere dragged about the streets at the tails of horses, some were disembowelled or pinched with forceps; others were broken on the wheel orhanged; most were burned at the stake. A fe w,while asserting their innocence, renounced theirfaith rather than endure the torments, were baptized, and received Christian names. They were then made to invoke the intercession of the little martyr, and some professed to have received miraculous aid from him in answer to their prayers. * Strangely enough, this very testimony was brought forward as an argument for fchej canonization of the boy Simon. This persecution lasted*for weeks until the Jews were driven away from the Trentino. A few of them took refuge at Riva, where in the middle of the next century they were flourishing, and had a printing press, which not only printed many Hebrew books, but was found convenient for publishing the sermons and speeches of the members of the Council of Trent.Meanwhile, Bishop Hinderbach was recommending his martyr to • the neighboring princes and potentates, and sending his portrait to Venice, Verona, and Austria. Matters reached such - a pass that on J uly 23 Pope Sixtus IV. asked the ' Bishop to stop further proceedings, while he s« a commissary, Bartolommeo Pa jarino, theBish of Vintimiglia. For a time things went well, but the investigations of * the commissary did not have the same result those of the Prince Bish op.. Ugly stories got about of the boy’s body be ing put into the Jewish quarters by ill-disposed Christians. (Probably the child had fallen intophe open sewer and been suffocated, as the placewhere its body was found was near to its own.father’s house, which was on the edge of the Jew-ish quarter.) Bishop Hinderbach got much excited, and accused everybody of being bought upby the.Jews or influenced by them—the imperialauthorities, the Patriarch of Venice, everybodyat Verona, the cardinals at Rome, and especially the commissary, whose recall he earnestly demanded. He had much to say of a Jewish plotto poison him, and there is a long story of apriest who cut off his tongue with an erasing-knife rather -than confess it. The Bishop was obstinate and a hard fighter, every one else wasweary of the -dispute, the Pope did not wish to offend him, and consequently in 1478 allowedtemporarily and locally the invocation of the child Simon at the altars of Trent. Sixtus IV.afterwards confirmed this by a bull dated thekalends of January, 14S1, and the little Simonwas thus beatified.There seems to be no bull or other evidence of the further steps for canonization, and it is doubtful whether it ever really took place. Proceedings of this kind were, however, often very irregular before the bull of Urban VIII. in 1634.Simon’s name appears, nevertheless, in the mar*tyrology above spoken of, for March 24, as follows: “At Trent the passion of the boy St. Simon, most cruelly killed by the Je ws, who shone afterward by many miracles.”It is interesting to note that the first book printed at Trent was a little pamphlet by Mattia Tiberino, on the complete history of the passion 'and death of the Blessed Simon. This was printed by Albert Hune of Mayence, a travelling printer who came to Trent in 1476. Subsequently a priest from Vicenza, Leonardo Longo, who had learned th§ art of printing, established himself in Trent, and printed there in 14S1 a pamphlet similar to that of Tiberino, and subsequently, in 1482, the 4 Epigrams ’ of Tiberino on the same subject.In what is unquestionably Italia irredenta, one is naturally interested in the question of th^ ultimate annexation of the Trentino to Italy. As all th8 inhabitants feel confident that this will!_ icome sooner or later, they engage in no premature agitation, and indulge only in mild literary, historical, and statistical disputes as to the rise and fall of German influence. There is no complication here, as in Istria and Trieste, in consequenceof the fact that a third nationality, Slavic*outnumbers both Germans and Italians together.In the Trentino, with the exception of a few scattered villages, the population is thoroughly Italian, As nearly as can be ascertained, out of a population of about 341,000, there afe only about 9,000 Germans, In Trent itself Italian is ever^ where spoken, and • the only. German book-shop was a small place on the edge of the town, where one could procure religious pictures, almanacs, and German primers, catechisms, and elementary books. In Botzen—or Bolzano, as the Italians call it—Italian Is much heard, especially ip one quarter. Exactly where the linguistic from tier is, it is hard to say. Roughly speaking, it follows the boundary of the district, crossing the Adige about half-way between Trent and Botzen, and then running northward so as to Include the, Val di Sole and Yal di Non on the west and thsf Val di Fiemme omthe east. At the time of tbf•age omitted hi ZWHfNfer** edition, under ti*date of Saturday, October 11,-1*45:TbAaai ATfed fc arfver which they aar divides Italy from Germany,and is not very big,but hnp^mom by rewon of cpunng; from the ,t mountains near jbere. ’ There is a woodenfed over it, and near by a fine town called by name, L’Aviso (Lavfe). At this town the' Italian speaking finishes, and people beginwholly to speak German, because from Verona and Vicenxa to here people, spoke partly Italian,pertly German, but b£re thelost.*is totallyi 1it ( t1i lt;3J ]1 I1 aI (1I\IiiiiiCouncil di Trent, when German influence -was strong,, we find Angelo Massarello, the Secretary lt;of the Council, in his curious diary, which is preserved in the library of Trent, saying, in a pas-111IItIis3tsIt(cbtIcI1sgarcfr1tbES13IStbeIT.IIec11feta• *fchaS4PuAuonVIebrthcttCt*3£v$
Newspaper Details
New York Evening Post
New York, New York, US
Fri, Jul 22, 1887
Page 3
Full Page
Clipped by
Anonymous
MI, USA 19 Jan 2022
Other Publications Near New York, New York
New York Stars and Stripes
New York Weekly Tribune
Barnard Bulletin
New York Times
New York Evening Times
